The click of the lock cracked like a whip. I was left standing on the filthy stairwell tiles, barefoot, wearing two different slippers. A thin robe hung off my shoulders, nothing underneath but my nightgown.
The February cold moved freely through the stairwell and sank its teeth straight into my ankles, as if it were alive—knowing exactly where it hurt most.
“Go take a walk until you become more agreeable,” came the muffled voice from behind the steel door.Sergei wasn’t drunk.That would have been easier.
His voice was sober.Calculating.Cold.I pressed the doorbell. Once. Twice. Then long and stubbornly, my finger rigid with defiance.“Don’t bother, Polina,” his mother joined in now—Galina Petrovna.
Her voice was hoarse, satisfied. “When you decide to put the contract in Sergei’s name, then we’ll talk. Until then, freeze out there. It might knock some sense into you. You’ve got half an hour.
After that I’ll call the police and tell them a vagrant is pounding on our door.”I leaned against the icy wall, shaking.Not so much from the cold—but from the realization that I was trapped.
Three years of marriage. For three years I had been “my dear little Polina,” while I baked cakes at home on commission and brought in small change. But a week ago I won a tender with a major café chain—and something inside them snapped.
Last night Sergei placed the contract in front of me.“You don’t understand business,” he said gently, sliding the pen toward me. “They’ll cheat you. Sign it. I’ll be the managing director.
You just keep baking your little sponge cakes. We’re family, after all.”I didn’t sign. This morning Galina Petrovna “accidentally” found my old savings passbook. The scandal exploded in seconds.
“Rat.”“Sneak.”“Hiding money behind her husband’s back.”And now here I was.I shoved my hands into the pockets of my robe to warm my fingers—and touched something smooth. My phone.
I’d slipped it into my pocket automatically when I went to open the door for the courier who never arrived. Everything had been planned.
Barely any signal. One bar.Battery: 12%.Who could I call?The police would take at least an hour. I’d freeze before then.My friend lived on the other side of the city.
My finger stopped on a name by itself:“Aunt Nina.”My mother’s sister. My only relative. She’d lived her whole life in the countryside—beekeeping, gardening, soil under her nails, conversations about weather and harvests.
What could she do from three hundred kilometers away?Offer sympathy? Pity?I had no choice.“Hello? Polina?” she answered briskly, as if it weren’t late at night.
“Aunt Nina…” My jaw barely obeyed me. My teeth were chattering. “Sergei threw me out. Into the cold. They want to take my business. I’m in the stairwell… in slippers.”
Silence.No wailing.No pity.“I know the address,” she said at last. “Stay there. Don’t knock on the neighbors’ doors—we don’t air dirty laundry early. I’m sending someone. He has a copy.”
“A copy of what?” I sniffed. “This is Sergei’s apartment…”“Do exactly what I say. Wait. Twenty minutes.”She hung up.I slid down the wall, pulling my knees to my chest. Twenty minutes.
From inside came the sound of the TV and clinking dishes.They were having dinner.Calmly eating my soup while I sat on the concrete floor. That hurt more than the cold.
Then the entrance door downstairs slammed shut.Heavy footsteps echoed upward.I flinched.A man appeared on the landing. Expensive cashmere coat, short hair, calm face.
A leather briefcase in his hand. Behind him stood two broad-shouldered men in uniform—rapid response.The man looked me over, took off his scarf, and silently handed it to me.
“Polina Andreyevna? I’m Viktor Sergeyevich. Nina Vasilyevna’s lawyer.”I nodded, wrapping myself in the warmth at once.“We need to go inside. May I?”
He pulled out keys.Not ordinary ones.Click. Click.The door opened.Inside, Sergei was holding a chicken leg.Galina Petrovna was pouring a drink.
When they saw us, Sergei choked, and his mother dropped the stopper.“You?!” Sergei shrieked. “Who are these people?! I’m calling the police!” “No need,” Viktor said calmly, placing the documents on the table. “We’re already here.”
